Mexican Stories: The incident of 1986, the CONASUPO radioactive milk.

Before I explain the incident of 1986 let’s get a bit of context. First of all, what was CONASUPO? Well, it still exists but is now called LICONSA.

It all started because there was a shortage of milk, back in 1944 a program to supply milk to ALL Mexicans started. It had a change of name throughout the years.

It adopted the name “CONASUPO” between 1963 and 1995. Of course, CONASUPO sold different products, all of them at affordable prices, it was meant to be for low-income workers.

But what happened?

Remember the Chernobyl disaster? It was in April 1986, when there was a loud explosion, and gases were liberated, and those gases traveled through Europe but, what does that have to do with anything? Let's start with Ireland, like many other European countries, was affected, their livestock ended up consuming radioactive grass/food, which therefore affected their milk. It was radioactive too.

Of course, throughout the European continent, there was a warning that milk could absorb more radiation than other food made for human consumption. Then, what was Ireland going to do with all that milk? They tried to sell it to countries that were not informed and that had people in need, well basically third world countries.

Their attempts at selling milk powder and butter to Brazil failed, and Venezuela, and Philippines, even Ghana, of course, all of them except Mexico. So between 1987 and 1989 Mexico bought 40 thousand tons of milk powder. When they sampled the milk, they realized it had 10 times the amount of strontium and cesium that a human can withstand. 2000 tons of butter was also imported. But something weird happened here because some reports say that they were NOT 40 thousand tons but 80 thousand tons of radioactive milk, of course, no one knows for sure which is the correct amount, the Mexican government in all its corruption manipulated the information.

The sad part is, even after the milk was tested it still got distributed and sold. Of course, in February 1988 the government said they would return the product back to Ireland, even if it was within the allowable limit of radiation. Unfortunately, even if they returned some of the milk they bought, it was very small compared to the amount that was distributed. They returned 3 thousand 900 tons of milk, a pretty small amount compared to 40 thousand tons. Or at least that is what is said, there are others who say that the milk was never returned, it was only meant to appease the people.

Sadly, to this day, the number of victims is unknown, no one was ever made responsible and it was never investigated thoroughly. In November 1995 there was a last attempt at trying to solve this case, congress approved the investigation to go forward, however, only eleven months passed and the case was closed and nothing came out of it.

Those who were mostly affected by the radioactive milk were kids. The only evidence that is left, are their parents, who were silenced by the government.

There is an estimate though, even though it is not directly linked to the CONASUPO incident, between 1987 and 1997 child cancer rates went up 300%, and this would mean that annually 900 children got afflicted by cancer from which 30% died.